USS Defiant (2370)
USS ''Defiant redirects here. For other ships of the same name, see Defiant.'' :"She may have flaws, but she has teeth" - Sisko, DS9 : "The Search, Part I" The USS Defiant (NX-74205) was one of at least three Federation starships to bear the name, and the prototype of the ''Defiant''-class vessel. Designed in 2366, the Defiant was the first of what was to be a new class of heavily armed Federation starship. Officially designated an escort, the Defiant-class was specifically designed to counter the Borg. Soon after the first vessel was completed however, a combination of a less urgent Borg threat and several design flaws caused Starfleet to suspend the project. Among the flaws was the fact that the Defiant's engines were overpowered relative to the size of the ship so much so, that the Defiant nearly "tore itself apart" during its shakedown cruise. Benjamin Sisko became intimately involved with the project while stationed at the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards after the destruction of the ''Saratoga'' at Wolf 359. Early in 2371, as Federation-Dominion hostility escalated, the Defiant was taken out of storage and assigned to Deep Space 9 to protect the station from the Dominion, who had recently destroyed the [[USS Odyssey|USS Odyssey]], a ''Galaxy''-class starship. The ship was granted special dispensation to carry a Romulan cloaking device. The Romulans loaned and allowed the limited supervised use of the cloaking device in the Gamma Quadrant only. In return, the Federation would provide the Romulans any and all intelligence data collected in the Gamma Quadrant about the Dominion. (DS9: "The Search, Part I", "Visionary") The Defiant was destroyed in 2375. (DS9: "The Changing Face of Evil") History Soon after its arrival at DS9, the Defiant entered the Gamma Quadrant on a mission to open negotiations with the Founders of the Dominion. The starship came under attack by several Jem'Hadar ships and was boarded. The senior officers were taken to the Founders' homeworld and placed in a simulation by the Vorta Borath. Once Odo and Kira Nerys found them, the Founders allowed them to return home. (DS9: "The Search, Part II") Several weeks later, the Defiant transported Jadzia Dax to Trill for treatment. The ship remained in orbit around Trill for several days. (DS9: "Equilibrium") When Major Kira Nerys was abducted by the Obsidian Order, Sisko took the Defiant into Cardassian space. The ship's shield harmonics were reconfigured so that the ship appeared to be a Kobheerian freighter. (DS9: "Second Skin") During an exploration mission in the Gamma Quadrant the Defiant discovered the planet Meridian on its first appearance in the primary universe since 2311. (DS9: "Meridian") Later, the ship was stolen by members of the Maquis, led by Thomas Riker (posing as his twin William Riker), who used it to attack several Cardassian targets. The ship was severely threatened by several Obsidian Order ''Keldon''-class warships. Having narrowly escaped, it would be protected by the ''Galor''-class warship, Kraxon, until the Obsidian Order threat was nullified. Major Kira then took the Defiant to the Demilitarized Zone to rendezvous with another Federation starship to transfer the remainder of the Maquis for arrest. (DS9: "Defiant") The Defiant transported the senior staff of DS9 to Earth for a conference on the Gamma Quadrant. The Defiant was the ship chosen for a joint Federation-Cardassian-Bajoran project to send and receive messages to and from the Gamma Quadrant. (DS9: "Destiny") .]] A few months later, Captain Benjamin Sisko, acting against orders, took the Defiant into the Gamma Quadrant again to rescue Odo and Elim Garak, who were on a Romulan warbird fighting the Dominion during the Battle of the Omarion Nebula. (DS9: "The Die is Cast") In late 2371, a Founder sabotaged the Defiant in an attempt to start a war between the Federation and the Tzenkethi by flying the Defiant into Tzenkethi space. (DS9: "The Adversary") The Defiant fought its way through Cardassian space to rescued members of the Cardassian Detapa Council in 2372 during the Second Federation-Klingon War. (DS9: "The Way of the Warrior") During a meeting with a Karemma ship, the Defiant was forced into a planet's atmosphere by the Jem'Hadar where it was severely damaged and many of its crew injured. The Defiant was able to destroy the Jem'Hadar ships and rescue the Karemma. (DS9: "Starship Down") The Defiant, under the command of Lieutenant Commander Worf traveled to Earth to assist Captain Sisko in suppressing a plot that would seize control of Earth from the President of the Federation. The Defiant was attacked by the [[USS Lakota|USS Lakota]], whose captain believed the ship's crew had been replaced by shapeshifters. Both ships were damaged but both stood down before either could be destroyed. (DS9: "Paradise Lost") After obtaining the detonation codes for a minefield the Klingons were deploying around the Bajoran system, the Defiant was used to detonate the entire minefield. (DS9: "Sons of Mogh") Finding life aboard DS9 difficult and much different from that of a starship, Worf decided to live aboard the Defiant. (DS9: "Bar Association") Later that year, again under of the command of Worf, the Defiant was escorting several Cardassian freighters when the Klingons attacked them. The Defiant accidentally destroyed a Klingon civilian transport, that was later determined to be empty and a Klingon ruse to bring Worf back to Qo'noS. (DS9: "Rules of Engagement") The Defiant later followed a rebel Jem'Hadar strike team that had attacked DS9 into the Gamma Quadrant. After rescuing more Jem'Hadar from the rebels, the two crews worked together to destroy an Iconian gateway, that the rogue Jem'Hadar had captured. (DS9: "To the Death") Several weeks later, the Defiant took an ill Odo back to his people where he was 'judged' and changed into a solid. Elim Garak attempted to destroy the Great Link using the Defiant's weapons, but was stopped by Worf and sentenced to six months in a holding cell. (DS9: "Broken Link") Later, the Defiant helped to capture a Jem'Hadar ship and bring it back to the Federation for study. (DS9: "The Ship") Several weeks later, the Defiant was transported to the 23rd century, where it encountered the ''Enterprise'' and its crew on a space station near the Federation-Klingon border. The crew stopped Arne Darvin, a disguised Klingon, from killing James T. Kirk with a bomb implanted in a tribble. (DS9: "Trials and Tribble-ations") While pursuing the Maquis traitor Michael Eddington, the Defiant was disabled by a cascade virus that Eddington had planted in its computer systems. The ship was towed back to Deep Space Nine by the [[USS Malinche|USS Malinche]]. After the Maquis attacked the Malinche, Sisko took the damaged Defiant after Eddington and stopped after poisoning one Maquis planet and threatening to poison more. (DS9: "For the Uniform") Several weeks later, the Defiant destroyed a runabout that had been stolen by a Founder and equipped with a bomb that was to be detonated in the Bajoran sun, thus destroying the entire system. (DS9: "By Inferno's Light") When Deep Space 5 detected a Borg cube on a direct course for Earth, the Defiant, under the command of Worf, joined a Starfleet task force in the Typhon sector to stop the cube. Unsuccessful in stopping the cube at Typhon, the task force fought a running battle with the Borg to Earth. Worf was about to order a suicide run against the cube but the ''Enterprise''-E arrived. The Defiant began to lose life support and its crew was beamed aboard the Enterprise. The Defiant crew later traveled back in time with the Enterprise crew to the year 2063, following a Borg sphere that had changed the timeline. After stopping the Borg, the crew traveled back to 2373. The Defiant was repaired and returned to Deep Space 9. (Star Trek: First Contact) After a salvage operation to Empok Nor went awry, the Defiant rescued O'Brien, Nog and Garak from the station. (DS9: "Empok Nor") In late 2373, the Defiant was used to deploy a minefield near the Bajoran wormhole to stop more Dominion ships from entering the Alpha Quadrant. After a Dominion attack and takeover of DS9, the Defiant evacuated all Federation citizens from the station. (DS9: "Call to Arms") Scientific missions As Starfleet's first dedicated warship, the Defiant had no on-board science facilities. Nevertheless, it was occasionally used for scientific investigations as well. In 2372, the ship was assigned to help Professor Lenara Kahn of the Trill Science Ministry to create an artificial wormhole. The attempt was successful, but the wormhole only remained for a few seconds before it destabilized, damaging the ship. Two years later, Starfleet sent the ship to investigate a recently discovered phenomenon, a subspace compression. :The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual indicates that the Defiant class has sensors capable of ~80% of the scans a standard starship's sensor arrays are capable of performing. The Dominion War at Starbase 375 in 2374]] The ''Defiant fought valiantly throughout the Dominion War and participated in the majority of its battles. In early 2374, the Defiant was assigned to operate out of Starbase 375. When Sisko was made Admiral Ross' assistant, Jadzia Dax was given command of the Defiant. She commanded the ship on a mission to destroy a Dominion sensor array in the Argolis Cluster. (DS9: "A Time to Stand", "Behind the Lines") The ship was used in Operation Return to reclaim DS9 and stop the Dominion from dismantling the minefield and bringing in its reinforcements from the Gamma Quadrant. After failing to stop the Dominion from destroying the minefield, the Defiant entered the wormhole in a vain attempt to stop the Dominion reinforcements. Captain Sisko convinced the Prophets to intervene and they destroyed the Dominion ships. They also made the wormhole impassable to any further Dominion incursions. (DS9: "Favor the Bold", "Sacrifice of Angels") While en route to Gul Dukat's war crimes trial, the [[USS Honshu|USS Honshu]] was destroyed by the Cardassians. The Defiant and the [[USS Constellation (NCC-1974)|USS Constellation]] spent many days searching for Sisko. The Defiant was about to leave the area when Dukat sent a message to the ship, informing them of Sisko's location. (DS9: "Waltz") Several months after the Federation retook DS9, Jem’Hadar captured the Defiant while it was on a scientific mission to study a subspace compression anomaly. The Defiant was reclaimed, with the help of a runabout that had been shrunk to only a few inches long. (DS9: "One Little Ship") Several weeks later the Defiant rescued the survivors of its sister ship the ''Valiant'', which had been destroyed by the Dominion. (DS9: "Valiant") The Defiant participated in the First Battle of Chin'toka. The ship located and destroyed the power source for the Orbital weapon platform, thus helping the Federation Alliance to conquer the system. (DS9: "Tears of the Prophets") The Defiant spent the next several months on convoy duty in the system. (DS9: "Image in the Sand") The Defiant returned to the Chin'toka system several weeks later when it made a supply run to AR-558. (DS9: "The Siege of AR-558") After she was kidnapped and brought to Empok Nor, the Defiant rescued Kira and several members of the Pah-wraith cult and brought them back to Bajor. (DS9: "Covenant") The Defiant's short but illustrious life ended during the Second Battle of Chin'toka, when the ship was disabled by the Breen energy dissipator, and subsequently destroyed by Dominion weapons. (DS9: "The Changing Face of Evil") The [[USS Defiant (NCC-75633)|USS São Paulo]] was renamed in honor of the Defiant, and it fought in the final battle of the Dominion War, the Battle of Cardassia. (DS9: "The Dogs of War", "What You Leave Behind") Unique Characteristics Ablative armor The [[USS Defiant (NX-74205)|USS Defiant]], was equipped with an ablative armor coating that was designed to disintegrate under enemy fire at a controlled rate. It dissipated the fire of directed energy weapons, decreasing damage to the main hull of the ship. It provided an extra layer of defense. As late as 2372, Defiant-class vessels weren't commonly equipped with this type of technology. (DS9: "Past Tense, Part I", The Way of the Warrior", "Paradise Lost", The Changing Face of Evil") Cloaking Device A special amendment to the Treaty of Algeron allowed the [[USS Defiant (NX-74205)|USS Defiant]] to be fitted with a Romulan cloaking device. (DS9: "The Search, Part I","Defiant") The Romulans loaned and allowed the limited supervised use of at least one cloaking device. Operation of the cloaking device was to be limited to the Gamma Quadrant. In return, the Federation would provide the Romulans any and all intelligence collected in the Gamma Quadrant and about the Dominion. Though expressing dissatisfaction with intelligence brought back by the Defiant, the Romulans apparently allowed the cloaking device to remain on the vessel even after they discontinued supervision. (DS9: The Search, Part I, "Visionary"). The [[USS Defiant (NX-74205)|USS Defiant]] was the only Federation vessel to be seen regularly operating a cloaking device. First Contacts * Karemma (The Ferengi were the first Alpha Quadrant species to contact them) * Founders, 2371 * Meridian, 2371 Command Crew * Captain Benjamin Sisko - commanding officer (CO) (2371-2373, 2375) * Lieutenant Commander Worf - first officer, security chief, tactical officer * Chief Miles O'Brien - chief engineer * Lieutenant Commander Jadzia Dax - CONN, science officer (2371 - 2373, commanding officer (CO) 2274) * Ensign Nog - CONN (2375) * Doctor Julian Bashir - chief medical officer (CMO) * Lieutenant Ezri Dax - Operations manager (2375) * Michael Eddington - security chief (2371 - 2372) Background information Ronald D. Moore originally wanted to call the Defiant the [[USS Valiant (NCC-74210)|USS Valiant]], but was unable to, as the [[USS Voyager|USS Voyager]] would also have begun with a "V". It would be three years before Moore was able to name a ship Valiant. The USS Valiant (NCC-74210) appears in the sixth season episode "Valiant". Early drafts of the script of Star Trek: First Contact suggested that the Defiant was to be destroyed in the Battle of Sector 001. In the DVD commentary for the film, First Contact co-writer and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine producer Ronald D. Moore said that Deep Space Nine's Executive Producer Ira Steven Behr had seen the script and objected to the needless destruction of his ship in a story that didn't even involve the Deep Space Nine characters (apart from Worf). It would also prove to be inconvenient for the television show, so the Defiant was eventually allowed to survive the battle, and a line suggesting that the Defiant was "adrift, but salvageable" was added to clear up any ambiguity. No reference to the damage the Defiant received during the battle was ever made on Deep Space Nine. The [[USS Equinox|USS Equinox]], a ''Nova''-class vessel, was designed based on the design of the Defiant "Pathfinder" vehicle, registry NXP-2365WP/T, found in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual. In the DS9 Season 3 DVD's special feature "USS Defiant" Herman Zimmerman states that the compact design of the Defiant influenced the design of the ''Enterprise'' NX-01. The model of the Defiant (Lot #497) was sold at the 40 Years of Star Trek: The Collection auction on October 6, 2006 for $102,000 including the buyer's premium (the winning bid was $85,000). Models of the Defiant have been made by AMT/Ertl, Galoob's Star Trek Micro Machines range and by Furuta. Corgi are to release a model of the Defiant in 2007. One of the Defiant's test cruises forms the basis of a mission in the Star Trek: Legacy game. Appearances By Episode The ''Defiant appears in all DS9 episode title sequences starting with Season 4 and beyond (not at the beginning of Season 3 however).'' * DS9: ** "The Search, Part I" ** "Equilibrium" ** "Second Skin" ** "Meridian" ** "''Defiant''" ** "Past Tense, Part I" ** "Past Tense, Part II" ** "Destiny" ** "The Die Is Cast" ** "The Adversary" ** "The Way of the Warrior" ** "The Visitor" ** "Rejoined" ** "Starship Down" ** "Our Man Bashir" ** "Paradise Lost" ** "Sons of Mogh" ** "Bar Association" ** "Rules of Engagement" ** "For the Cause" ** "To the Death" ** "Broken Link" ** "The Ship" ** "...Nor the Battle to the Strong" ** "Trials and Tribble-ations" ** "The Ascent" ** "The Darkness and the Light" ** "For the Uniform" ** "In Purgatory's Shadow" ** "By Inferno's Light" ** "Soldiers of the Empire" ** "Children of Time" ** "Blaze of Glory" ** "In the Cards" ** "Call to Arms" ** "A Time to Stand" ** "Sons and Daughters" ** "Behind the Lines" ** "Favor the Bold" ** "Sacrifice of Angels" ** "You Are Cordially Invited..." ** "The Magnificent Ferengi" ** "Waltz" ** "Far Beyond the Stars" ** "One Little Ship" ** "Honor Among Thieves" ** "Inquisition" ** "''Valiant''" ** "Time's Orphan" ** "The Sound of Her Voice" ** "Tears of the Prophets" ** "Image in the Sand" ** "Once More Unto the Breach" ** "The Siege of AR-558" ** "Covenant" ** "It's Only a Paper Moon" ** "Prodigal Daughter" ** "Field of Fire" ** "Chimera" ** "Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang" ** "Penumbra" ** "The Changing Face of Evil" * Star Trek Movies: ** Star Trek: First Contact Apocrypha In the video game Star Trek: Encounters the Defiant appears in the two levels based off of Deep Space Nine. In addition, the Defiant appears in the game's last level where it briefly visits an alternate timeline where the Romulan Empire has conquered the Federation. The Defiant later helps the ''Enterprise''-E, [[USS Voyager|USS Voyager]], the ''Enterprise''-A, and the ''Enterprise'' (NX-01) defeat a combined Xindi, Klingon, Romulan, Dominion, and Borg fleet. See also * [[USS Defiant (NCC-1764)|USS Defiant (NCC-1764)]] * [[USS Defiant (NCC-75633)|USS Defiant (NCC-75633)]] * ''Defiant'' (mirror) * [[Deep Space 9 personnel#Unnamed personnel|Unnamed Starfleet personnel serving on the USS Defiant]] * [[USS Defiant dedication plaque|USS Defiant dedication plaque]]s External Links * The * Jim Martin Interview; Designing the USS Defiant, an article by Jim Martin taken from the August 1999, Issue 4 and May 2000, Issue 13 of the Star Trek: The Magazine. * Various fan-drawn and scanned schematics of the Defiant Defiant, USS, NX-74205 de:USS Defiant (NX-74205) es:USS Defiant fr:USS Defiant (NX-74205) nl:USS Defiant (NX-74205) sv:USS Defiant NX-74205